An LA Detective Thinks He Finally Solved Tupac’s Murder

Almost twenty years after the fatal shooting of rap legend Tupac Shakur – two decades of conspiracy theories, resurrection theories, holograms, non-stop posthumous releases, and several airings of Juice and Gang Related on cable – a detective has gone on record with the claim that he solved one of the greatest mysteries of the late 20th century.

Usually, a new Tupac theory would and should probably get filed away in some outdated website next to some aliens gave weed to the Earth shit, but this theory comes from a pretty legit detective. That would be hero cop Russell Poole, one of the detectives on the Notorious BIG’s murder and the investigator who uncovered the 90s Rampart scandals, revealing widespread and murderous corruption throughout the LAPD.

So, who did it? According to Poole, it was the wife and the bodyguard. Or, more precisely, Suge Knight’s then wife Sharitha Knight and head of Death Row Security Reggie Wright Jr. Sharitha was in a prolonged divorce with Suge at the time and, Poole theorizes, convinced Wright to help her plot the murder of both Suge and Tupac in an attempt to gain all Suge’s assets and assume control of Death Row Records.

According to a recently published book, Tupac 187: The Red Knight, by Richard “RJ” Bond and Michael Douglas Carlin, Poole was dismissed from the force in the late 90s for being a lot more into the truth behind Shakur’s death than any of his superiors in the LAPD were. He then continued his investigation and got what he calls his first big break in the case only two years ago.

In 2013, the former detective got a hold of a supposed confession in the possession of a reporter at the Los Angeles TV station KTTV. That confession, which was seen and ignored by Las Vegas police all the way back in 1998, started Poole on his movie-worthy quest to bring Shakur’s murderers to justice.

He told VICE in a recent interview that if police were to pursue the clues he’s found, the cold case could get warm again and then, like a hunk of ham cooking at the right temperature, so warm that it’s done. “If this was Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra who got murdered, there would’ve been arrests a long time ago,” Poole said. “This case can be solved, but needs police follow-up. There are clues sitting right in front of the police. It’s a travesty of justice.”